Hark! From the darkness comes a voice like a chorus of claws on a chalkboard, a voice that says: Hello, Daemons! Been a while. Sorry to have been silent for so long, but we’re working on fixing that: over the coming weeks all the missing Monthlies from months past shall appear. Look forward to it!
Also, another hello is due as an introduction: this is new human Devon speaking. Indie teams often take on many roles, or hats, and I have stolen the Daemon Monthly hat so everyone can better focus on their specialties. I plan to be the greatest hat thief that ever lived, from worldbuilding to marketing - mwahaha!! I mean, nice to meet you! I’ll see you around.
Onto the news: December’s progress!
Shield Party
Roy coded the Shield class into life, using the new framework for all conversions - such a fancy lad. The core class abilities are up and running, from the passive defensive boon to active blocking and damage. The tests involved are starting to fly by!
Roy and Trey also designed out some fun dual abilities to look forward to in future updates! Overwhelm is shield + sword that allows players to bounce back and forth between two enemies. Retaliate is another shield + sword - but this one doesn’t get telegraphed. Players set it up in secret, hoping to counter casters that step into melee range. On the fire + shield side, Blood Boil temporarily raises immolation damage and increases health regeneration, and Molten Shield reflects 3 projectiles back at the enemy, but with fire, which is always a good time.
CI / CD - Coming Up! Eventually!
Trey and Bud were entangled with the dragon of Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery. This process ended up being something of a boss battle for the team!
Due to the complexity of the various issues they encountered and the fact that CI / CD is useful to know about, Trey plans on writing a full-blown, separate article about it (though whether he’ll have time this current month of May is unknown).
The topic will pop up in most of the Monthlies to come, so for now, imagine CI / CD smirking its dragony smirk with a laugh like crackling embers. We’ll get you someday, CI / CD. Just you wait…
Worldbuilding
We want the game world to be naturally immersive, filled with details for invested players to pick apart and identify with. So Trey and I talked about how to extend and rework worldbuilding pieces for the various classes and nations, from symbols to common sayings.
For example, I looked at the abilities of the shield class, such as the ability to reduce damage done against the entire team, and worked to figure out what history would have led to the development and upkeep of those abilities. We ended up with the Hearthguard, a militia focused on community and infamous for its intense, drunken revelries.
The Sword and Heal classes received similar treatment - but at least for now, I’ll leave them in the shadows. I don’t want to steal the thunder of story discovery for players!
Random Quality Buffs
Trey made improvements to the camera’s AI - one of those features people don’t notice unless something’s off, so the continued attention to detail in these early stages is much appreciated!
I restructured the way that the company’s digital documents are stored - it should now be less of a headache to find and store everything from videos to design docs.
Will wrote his bio for the Daemon Games website about page, and thanks to guest artist Mikel Eatough, he and Lori now have team avatars on that very same page! You can find more of Mikel’s work on her website.
Art
Will nearly-literally tackled the environment, basically beating it down to match the more desolate vibe one might expect from a Daemon-based game.
You got a sneak peak at Will’s concepts for dioramas and characters in November’s monthly - now behold, their glorious polygonal flesh! Through the magic of retopology and shaders, we come one step closer to conquering the visual world.
This character might be familiar to you - it’s Trey’s avatar from the about page. The team needed a way to test different art styles and the limits of artistic ability, so we figured we might as well pick a character whose design is set. Thus the good Warenth became the guinea pig for the next several months! What a sport.
That wraps up December! I’ll see you soon for January’s log.
May your days be grandly devious!
Devon